The Last Mad Tea Party
by Illyria Lives
Summary: In which no one knows why Callum is manager of the shop in the first place, Rory abuses espresso in the name of justice, Boo is physicality given form, and Stephen is definitely *not* a hipster. Coffee shop AU.


**Coffee shop AU that kind of morphed into a romcom AU while I wasn't paying attention...**

**No spoilers for any of the books, Stephen/Rory.**

**Beta'd by my wonderful, patient, forgiving (unless I use semicolons) beta paradorx~**

* * *

It was only by months of practice, and the grace of whatever pagan god who held the jurisdiction of all things tea, that Rory didn't douse herself in a shower of chai and earl grey when Boo, her fellow waitress, bumped pointedly into her one damp afternoon as she was walking out of the kitchen.

Boo was pure physical energy given form, that of a young Indian girl with multicolored hair, and she often did a Thing when on duty where she tried to communicate to Rory through a series of bumps, run-ins, and flat out abuse with her elbows what she wanted to say, but couldn't, since the tea shop, although insanely named, was often too quiet to allow private conversation.

Once her tray of stacked mugs and cups was safely re-balanced on one hand Rory gave a glare showing her exact appreciation of the Thing and swept away from the fumingly silent Boo, onto the main floor of The Last Mad Tea Party.

The tea and coffee shop had tilted, uneven flooring that was covered with over layered rugs and carpets that were bought second hand and then arranged to hide most of the stains, and Rory maneuvered her way from table to table expertly. Although she could trip on shadows when out on the streets of London, here in the shop she was in her element, threading her way between small tables and large, high tables and low, depositing coffee where coffee was wanted and dropping off mismatched mugs of tea. When her round of the room was done, Rory pushed past the swinging door into the kitchen and was immediately seized by Boo and drawn off to one side.

"Did you see him?" Boo demanded.

"You're crushing my arms," Rory replied, and Boo readily released her.

"He is _totally _checking you out, ever since he walked in."

Rory wrinkled her nose. The last guy she could remember walking in was easily upwards of forty years old and was heavy enough to be used as an anchor on a ship.

Boo smacked her already bruised arm. "No, not that guy. The other one. The hipster one."

When it became clear that Rory had no idea in seven hells to what man Boo was referring, the older girl gave a loud sigh of exasperation and pushed the swinging door open with one hand, giving Rory a good view of the main floor of the shop. Boo's arm pointed towards a young man sitting alone at a small table near the window, reading a book with a pair of pricy glasses perched on his aristocratic nose.

Rory gave a little _huff_. "Just because he wears a scarf doesn't make him a hipster," she said.

"Just because he wears a scarf doesn't _not _make him a hipster," Boo countered, letting the door to the kitchen swing shut. "But he was totally checking you out as you did your rounds."

"SPEAKING OF WHICH…"

Both girls jumped at the booming voice issuing from the back room. Callum, their manager (for reasons unknown to either of them; they knew plenty well he never did anything resembling real work) stood in the doorway, arms crossed and his look entertained but judgmental. "One of you should be doing the rounds right about… oh wait…" he squinted at his wrist, checking for a time on a watch he never wore.

"Yeah, yeah." Boo huffed off to freshen mugs of coffee and take orders for refills and cakes.

Callum went to stand next to Rory, peering out of the small circular window in the kitchen door. "Oh, he's totally a hipster," he said, and ducked as Rory threw a poorly aimed dishtowel at his head.

* * *

Throughout the rest of the day, Rory kept her eye on the not-hipster; he appeared to take up permanent residency at his corner table, with a horribly expensive laptop, a professional-looking camera, and large reams of paper. A few newspaper clippings emerged during his stay, as did a leather-bound tome that look huge enough to kill small dogs. Rory wondered how his shoulder bag was capable of carrying everything. She never noticed him looking up, which she noted to rub in Boo's face later. "Checking her out," indeed.

More than once Rory caught Boo out of the corner of her eye, making gestures from Rory towards the young man with a lecherous look in her eyes.

Rory casually flipped the bird behind her back, aiming towards Boo, and judging by the exaggerated exasperated _huff _she gave off, it hit the mark.

* * *

Stephen wasn't completely sure why he chose the Mad Tea Party as his base of operations; there was a bakery a few storefronts over that he could have stolen Wi-Fi from, and it still had a good view of the apartment building… but there was something appealing about the old, faded tea shop that drew him in. It was a remainder of what had been a successful chain of shops; but then with Starbucks growing in popularity, it faded to just one solitary hole of random cups and rugs and a good espresso.

But it did have its advantages. With the high traffic of people going in and out, he had barely any witnesses to how he sat there all day, a camera on the table next to his laptop, tapping occasionally away at the shutter button to take a few pictures of the apartment building across the street. It was good work, and a good place to do it—fresh cups of whatever he want came along whenever he wanted, and the Wi-Fi signal was surprisingly strong, and, better yet, free.

He stayed the entire day.

And then some.

* * *

"Sir?" Rory asked him, since it was probably rude to address him as 'hipster dude'. "Sir, we're closing in five minutes."

The young man looked up from his laptop, eyes a rather handsome color beneath his thick-rimmed glasses. Rory tipped her hips to one side, bracing a hand there, and pretended not to notice how he pretended not to notice.

"Oh, right," he replied in a gorgeous accent that Rory was tempted to bottle and sell as magic elixir, and began to quickly tuck and hide papers and folders inside other papers and folders, ending with a large stack of papers and folders that he slipped into his shoulder bag, along with his high-tech laptop, which was almost as thin as a wafer. "Sorry."

"Not a problem. Here's your bill. You pay up front." She placed the long receipt on the table and then led him, stumbling under the weight of his bag. She stood behind the counter at the front of the shop, the register all warmed up for the finale payment of the day, and he stopped in the middle of the floor, digging through his bag for where his wallet had gone missing.

She tapped out an odd beat on the countertop with her fingernails, stealing glances at hipster's shoulders as he twisted in an obscene way to access his bag while keeping the strap on his shoulder.

The bell above the door jingled as a man in sweats and a sweatshirt entered.

"I'm sorry sir, we're closed," Rory told him. He looked at her for a long moment and then walked right up to the counter. Rory was aware of the hipster pausing in his search, remaining completely still. She swallowed down her reservations and threw as much twang as she could into her accent. "Can I help you with anything before I lock up, sir?"

"Yeah," he said, after a minute, "Yeah, you could." He took his hands out of his pockets and placed his fists on the countertop. In one hand he held a knife. "You could give me all the money in the register, doll."

Rory cleared her throat, her heart dropping into her stomach, and slowly took out the key to the register from her apron pocket. She nearly dropped it when there was a loud, sudden sound.

"FREEZE!" the hipster yelled, his voice like a sonic boom, deeper than she thought it was previously, and her head whipped around to see him with both feet planted on the floor, a gun in his hands, steady and pointing right at the man with the knife. It took him only a moment to burst out onto the street, running as if for his life.

In the sudden silence of the bell over the door drifting to a stop, Rory panted, her heart threatening to burst out of her chest, and the hipster swallowed heavily, moving his thumb along the top of the gun until the safety clicked on. He lowered his hands and approached her at the counter.

"Are you alright?" he asked. She was barely capable of nodding. "Good," he said, swallowing again and then looking over his shoulder at the darkened street seen through the glass door.

Once Rory got herself composed with a few yoga breaths learned from when her grandmother dragged her to a few new age yoga classes back in Louisiana, she realized that the previously boring as hell hipster was now something much cooler. A spice thrown into the boring stew of her life.

"You're a cop?!" She sounded absolutely ecstatic.

"No! I mean, not anymore…" he suddenly went red as she pointedly stared at his gun and he tucked it away again. "I have a permit for that," he said weakly. This day was clearly not going in a direction he liked.

She hummed a vaguely disagreeing sound and leaned her hands forward on the countertop. "Even if you're not a cop, I still owe you a free espresso for saving my life and the till." _And you owe me an explanation_, her eyes said.

He cast about for a clever excuse to stay away from this overly curious American girl with bright eyes and dark hair. He was Stephen Dene and he controlled situations the way conductors controlled orchestras. Time to pull off a great escape and get back to focusing on the job that he was nearly famous for his proficiency in.

"Tomorrow?" he asked.

She nodded, biting her grin back into something coyer than she normally advertised. "Tomorrow."

* * *

"I can't believe you got a date with the hipster guy," Boo said. Or at least it was what Rory thought she was trying to say by digging her elbow into Rory's abdomen when they passed each other during the lunch rush table checks, handing out sandwiches and freshening cups of tea and coffee. Rory shot her a look and stuck out her tongue. Boo, in retaliation, made kissy face at her as she backed through the swinging kitchen door. Just inside, she bumped into Callum, and turned around with the same look still frozen on her face.

Rory smiled as she bustled about, a coffee pot in one hand and a tray of sandwiches in the other. Karma cometh on swift wings.

Luckily Boo was too preoccupied to notice hipster not-a-cop entering with his bag and camera dripping off of him. He wore the same glasses and a different scarf. Without looking at Rory he made his way to the same table he had sat at yesterday, and in record time the table was filled with papers and his camera was set to one side, where it had an uncluttered view of the window.

Rory readied one of the best espressos she had ever made before and walked it confidently over to his table, putting down the cup with a decisive _clink _and then, uninvited, taking the seat across the table from him.

"On the house," Rory said, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to speak. "Well, not really. Answers."

He gave her an unamused look in response.

"So if you're not a cop, why were you packing a gun?" she started straight off.

He didn't look at her, instead typing some random words into his computer in hopes that she would leave. He started when she placed her hand on top of one of his bundles of papers and slid it across the table to her. His hand flashed out and pinned hers to one spot. She looked up at him with a cheeky smile and he gave her a serious look.

"Need to know," he said gruffly.

Rory tried for a pout and then thought better of it, instead looking frankly at him with her head propped in her hand not currently trapped under his. "I work in one of the most boring and tedious jobs known to man. I came to London looking for adventure and frankly you're as close to it as I've gotten in three years."

He gave her a long, slow look and took his hand off, moving hers to one side and then sliding the papers back into his safety zone. "My name is Stephen Dene. I'm not a cop anymore. I'm an investigator for the Shades Network."

Her eyes were shining as she leaned back in her chair. "Now _that's _what I'm talking about." Stephen tried not to smile as he took a large sip of his coffee. One of the best cups he had ever had, he had to admit.

"So, what are the Shades, what do they do-?"

"That actually _is _classified," he told her honestly. "And I take my job very seriously."

"You do?" she gave him a look.

Before he knew what he was doing, he answered honestly, "They saved my life."

That threw her for a long pause. "You're not… there's not going to be any trouble for you, if you're caught sitting here taking pictures, right?"

"You're not in any danger," he assured her, before something hit him like a ton of bricks. "You knew I was taking pictures?"

"That wasn't a very good answer to my question," she said, and then something in her peripherals made her flinch and turn a bright shade of scarlet. Stephen looked as well to see what she had seen, but all he saw was the other waitress leaning against the wall, whistling nonchalantly.

She stood up, scraping her chair across the floor in her haste to get up. "I have to get back to… well, I work here," she said awkwardly. "Um, name's Rory by the way. Call me over if you need anything." She scurried off to the kitchen as quickly as possible, followed closely by the other waitress, who cast a long and appraising look at Stephen as she did so.

Stephen took a long, deep sip of his coffee, berating himself mentally. Get your mind back on the job, Dene. No distractions. Stick to the plan.

He almost missed the target leaving the apartment building, and he snapped several quick pictures as he did so.

* * *

"_Rounds_," Callum said in his best manager tone. Rory gave a small whimper in response. Callum thought deeply for a moment before offering up a plaintive "…please?"

Rory shook her head. She was sitting on the floor in the kitchen, her back against the cabinets, looking despondent and not unlike a wet puppy left in the rain. Boo had left on her lunch break, off to do something or other with her family, leaving Callum alone with a handful of problems, most of which related to how his one remaining waitress refused to show her face in the main room.

After a moment of consideration, Callum sat down next to her. "Is it that hipster guy?" he asked. The way Rory turned a shade of red informed him of her answer. He looked up, towards the swinging kitchen door. "I could kick his ass," he told her.

She gave him a look, but she was smiling. "It's not him. I just totally came off as a cheesy dork when talking to him, and Boo wants us to bang sooner rather than later—"

"Too much information," Callum cut in with a sour look. Rory rolled her eyes and then, as if with suddenly realization of her entire conversation coming to mind, hid her face in her hands.

"He probably thinks I'm a dork," she moaned.

"You _are _a dork," Callum pointed out. "Now, _rounds._"

She huffed and stood with as much dignity as she could muster, grabbed a pot, a tray, and a notepad, and flounced out of the kitchen. Callum watched her go with a rather pleased smile.

* * *

Stephen noticed Rory emerging from the kitchen after a long hour of pretending to do work while keeping one eye trained on the door to the kitchen. He then reddened, realizing that he had just spent an hour waiting for her to walk around and not talk to him, and _who does that_.

He gave serious thought to hiding under the table as Rory approached with a coffee pot in one hand. "Refill?" she asked. He nodded stiffly.

She was about to walk away when he heard himself speak. "Rory?"

She turned and looked at him, and he wondered what the hell he was going to say.

Eventually he settled for, "Do you work here every day?"

"Yeah."

He shifted in his seat to look out of the window his camera was pointed to. "Do you ever notice anything strange with that building?" he didn't point to it, only nodded in its general direction.

Rory came to stand next to where he was seated, bending over to eye level to see what he was referring to. Stephen kept his head staring stiffly ahead. "You mean the old apartment building?" she asked.

He nodded.

Rory straightened and shrugged. "Not really. A lot of people coming and going at night, right as I'm closing up."

Stephen picked through his papers and came up with a picture. "Does this man look familiar?" He was an older man, in a rather outdated suit, and the picture was of him standing at the entrance to the apartment building, looking over his shoulder so his face was in view. Rory almost started when she noticed that the picture was taken from the table where Stephen was currently sitting.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "I never paid much attention."

Stephen nodded and put the photo away. "Well, if you notice him doing anything suspicious…"

"Is he the guy you're hunting down?" she perked up immediately. She mentally reminded herself to keep it cool.

"Well, I'm not at liberty to say," he said, confirming everything.

"What'd he do?" Rory edged around the table to take her vacated seat from earlier. Stephen brightened up a bit and then snuffed down his emotions.

"I'm…"

"Not at liberty to say?" Rory gently mocked.

"I'm not sure," he said in an even voice. "He's been implicated for several major crimes but we're not sure which he's guilty for."

Rory considered that, nodding to herself. And then she looked up, and idea occurring to her that she acted on before thinking.

"Want to go find out?" she asked.

Stephen decided that doing whatever she had planned was not a good idea, not in the least. He would not do it. He was a professional.

"Okay," he said.

* * *

"I mean, you only get pictures of him when he's walking in and out of his apartment; what's that supposed to do?" Rory asked, walking next to Stephen on the sidewalk.

"It's called a stakeout," he said primly.

"It doesn't _do _anything," she said.

He sputtered indignantly but stopped and sucked in a big breath as Rory took his arm in hers. "There he is," she whispered loudly, putting her mouth close to his ear to ensure he could hear her over the din of the rushing street. They had started at the apartment building and headed in the direction the man normally walked off in, occasionally asking stationary storeowners or housekeepers if they had seen him pass, and following their directions until they reached a busy square.

The man was sitting at a table in a bistro, reading a newspaper with a half-eaten deli sandwich on a plate in front of him. He shuffled his papers and took a look around, eyes sweeping across the little shopping square.

"Quick," Rory urged Stephen, tugging on his arm, "Look couple-y. We need to blend in." Even as the words were leaving her mouth she winced at the way she said it, like hearts were about to start floating out of her eyes.

However, she was grateful that aside from a slight twitch in one corner of his mouth he didn't burst into hysterics. He turned so that they were facing each other, standing quite close. He took both of her hands in his and held them tight at about chest level.

"Couple-y enough?" he asked, and then winced after he said it, ears tinting a bit with pink. His posture was stiff and upright.

Rory chuckled quietly. "We just stood out a little, two people just hanging around… I didn't want him to think…"

"Hey!" they both turned their heads. The man was squinting at them from across the square, and several other people had turned at the sound of his voice as well. "Are you two… did you follow me?!" A few other couples in the area, doing a much better job at looking couple-y, were looking at him strangely. The man stood then, and, tossing down his paper on his table, began to walk towards them.

Rory's mind was in overdrive. "Quick!" she hissed to Stephen, gripping his hands tighter, "Get on one knee!"

He didn't even question her, falling to one knee immediately.

"OH MY GOD!" Rory squeaked loudly, "OH, STEPHEN!" Heads turned, and they were surrounded by a ring of people curiously observing them, couples cooing, immediately getting what was going on, and girlfriends sending jealous looks to boyfriends. A chant went up for Rory to say yes.

Now, it was clear she had never had a professional acting class, but she could work a crowd. "But, Stephen, I thought you were leaving for France next week!" if anyone noticed the stage quality to her voice, they didn't comment. She fluttered her eyes in what she hoped was a forlorn way.

Stephen blinked a few times, and then, bless him, caught on. "Not anymore," he said in the same too-loud voice, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you, you beautiful woman! Marry me?!" he asked like he was trying to communicate with someone who didn't know English, and the gathered crowd grew louder with their encouragement for Rory to say yes.

On the outside edge, the man narrowed his eyes and then walked slowly and cautiously back to his table. Rory watched go from the corner of her eye and then nodded to Stephen. He gave a small, stiff nod to show he understood.

"OF COURSE I'LL MARRY YOU!" she announced, and her surprised squeak was drowned out by the crowd when Stephen picked her up by the waist and spun her around.

"Let's get out of here," he whispered in her ear. She took his hand and ran.

* * *

They didn't stop running until they were in the back alley behind The Last Mad Tea Party, hunched over and breathless, both from the exercise and from laughter.

"I never would have thought of that," Stephen panted.

"_I _can't believe I thought of it," Rory replied, her dark hair hanging in her face. Stephen felt the urge to tuck it behind her ear, and then dropkicked that idea into the next century. Better to salvage as much professionalism as he could today.

"Did we even accomplish anything?" he asked, tugging at his scarf.

"Besides getting engaged?" Rory returned, and he looked away to avoid breaking out into giggles. "I'm not sure," she continued, standing up straight and fixing her hair herself. "I guess I just wanted to show you that you could get more info on him by following than by sitting around the shop all day…"

Her face turned red. "Not that I don't want you sitting around the shop all day!" she backpedaled quickly, but, if anything, only tightened the knot. "I mean, not that I _want _you around either—I mean—let's just go inside and pretend this never happened."

Without waiting for a response from Stephen, she opened the door and let herself inside. Stephen, after a moment, followed along, looking around curiously at the commercial kitchen he was now in, feeling immensely out of place as Rory took her apron off of a hook and donned it again.

"I'll… I'll tell my supervisors about putting surveillance on him on the go," he said in what he hoped was an encouraging voice. The awkward silence was getting to him, and he edged along towards the swinging door to salvation and his laptop, which he hoped was still where he had left it…

A door in the kitchen slammed open as if by some percussive force, and an angry black young man stood in the doorway, his face thunderous as he honed in on Rory.

She barely spared him a glance over her shoulder. "Hey, Callum," she said lightly, "I'm back from my break."

Callum gave Stephen, still standing awkwardly by, a fiery glare. Stephen narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw in response.

"You left in the middle of lunch rush while Boo was off hanging with her family. Without telling me." He sounded murderous and betrayed, and crossed his arms over his chest, looking at Rory like a displeased teacher.

"Boo was due back any minute," Rory shrugged, readying teapots and coffee pots. "I figured that she would cover for me."

"Boo broke her leg," Callum cut out stiffly. "She's going to be out for a few weeks."

"Oh my god," Rory said, pausing her work for a moment with a shocked expression. "Is she alright?"

"She'll be fine, but the point is that you have been shirking from your duties for a week and I'm sick of it."

Rory placed her hands on her hips, facing him fully. "What are you saying."

"What I'm saying is that I'm trying to manage a business! Meanwhile, you're off playing games with your hipster best friend and leaving me high and dry with no wait staff." Callum waved a dismissive hand towards Stephen, who paused in his attempts to move slowly towards the door. Rory fumed, eyes igniting with fire.

"I'm not a hipster," Stephen tried to interrupt. Both parties ignored him.

"What I do on my own time is none of your business," Rory snapped.

Callum scoffed. "It is when it messes with _my _business!"

"How about I quit then?!" Rory returned, and Stephen's jaw went slack.

"We wouldn't make it two days without you, you selfish brat—"

"And I would know what to do with the extra time, this place is my _life_!" Rory nearly shrieked at him.

"Then I guess I'm stuck with you and your hipster sidekick for a long time, then." Callum began to stomp back into his office.

"Fine!" Rory shouted after him.

"FINE." He slammed the door shut like a child throwing a tantrum.

Rory stood there quietly steaming with her arms crossed, and Stephen looked back and forth between her and the shut door. "I don't…" his lips tightened into a line and he looked accusingly at Rory. "What just happened."

Rory shrugged. "Callum and I just had a fight."

"You don't seem too worried by that."

"We do it at least once a week," she said cheerily, giving him a grin, and he had no response. "Come on," Rory cut into the silence, grabbing her tray and holding the swinging door open for him, "let's go."

He followed her mutely from the kitchen, and it took him several steps to remember to protest being called a hipster.

She smiled patronizingly in response.

* * *

That night, as Stephen left around two hours before closing, called away on other business, he rather shyly gave Rory a business card for the Shades Network, with his personal number written on in pen. He had written his number on three cards and had thrown out the first two because of where he had written the number. The first time it was too large and looked desperate, and the second time he tilted it in a weird way.

"In case you see anything, or need any help," he said. Rory took the card and looked at it between her fingers for a long moment before pulling out a napkin and writing her own number on it. She didn't offer up any excuse, simply handing it over with a small smile. He took it, tried to return the smile, got more of a satisfied grimace and then quickly left.

Rory put his number in her phone, and, after a moment of consideration, assigned it a speed dial number. She didn't have many people on speed dial, only Boo, Callum, and one of her girlfriends Jazza. Her ex-boyfriend Jerome had once been on there, but since she never called him and he never called her, Rory ended up deleting his number on a whim one afternoon.

As she fiddled with her phone she glanced up out of the window by Stephen's table and saw the man entering the front door of the apartment with a large duffle bag. Rory snapped a few pictures, and, hoping it wasn't too soon to text him, messaged the photos to him with a question mark.

As she tapped the screen she didn't notice how the man looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes at her, standing in the window with her phone out.

* * *

"I'm going to go visit Boo," Callum said, emerging from his office around closing time. He held something behind his back, and Rory eyed it as she leaned against the front counter, where she had just finished up with their last customer of the day.

"Oh?" she asked, with a catlike smile.

"Yes," Callum said forcefully, edging around her with his arm still behind his back. "Think you can close up and not run off with any hipsters without me here to supervise?"

Rory pursed her lips, thinking deeply. She tapped one finger on her chin. "I don't know… _OH NO CALLUM THERE'S A SPIDER ON YOU_!"

He jumped, throwing his arms out on either side as he looked over his chest for the spider. Then he glared at Rory, who giggled loudly. "Oh, ha-ha," he said dryly.

"Nice bouquet," Rory countered, and as he stomped away she hummed the wedding march.

The bell over the door stopped ringing as he stomped down the sidewalk, and Rory laughed, turning her back on the door to finish shutting down the register and store away the menus in their cabinet. Chewing on her lip, she took out her phone and called Stephen, getting his voice mail. "Hey, Stephen, it's Rory… just wanted to know if you got those photos I sent to you earlier… I don't know, it just looks a little suspicious that he's carting that big old bag around, you know? Anyways, um, call me back; I'm closing up now… um, or maybe stop by tomorrow? Yeah. Um I'm going to hang up now." She did so with a burning face.

The bell rang.

"I'm sorry, but we're closed—" Rory turned around, her best hostess face on, but then her heart dropped down into her toes.

The man from across the street stood in the entryway of the shop, smiling a gentle smile. "Hi," he said amicably, "I was wondering if perhaps I could have those photos you took of me earlier."

Rory swallowed and struggled to speak, mind moving a mile an hour. "Wha-what photos?" she asked, and stumbled back from the counter. The man gave her a dark look.

"Now," he said, and began to walk forward, "I'm trying to be polite, but you're a curious little girl…" he said, stepping forward again, "Now, what's to be done about that?"

Rory swallowed, looking around frantically as she backed away from the slowly advancing man, keeping up the strange dance he had initiated. She backed up into the swinging door, but as she surged back through it, hoping it would cut him off from her for at least a moment; he reached out a hand and held it open.

"Those pictures could ruin everything," he said in a low, calm voice. "The police and the Shades know that that bag was missing from a murder victim's house, along with, well, the murder victim…"

"Stay back," Rory ordered uselessly. He smiled in response, a savage baring of teeth. Rory's hands searched behind her for something she could use as a weapon, something, _anything_, and collided with a table.

He leaned in over her, grinning with cold eyes. "I'm going to carve you up and send you to your hipster fiancé in a _box_," he hissed.

Rory's hand found something.

It was hot, scalding, and she didn't care what it was. She closed her fist around it and swung it at his head with all her might.

The glass coffee pot shattered, pouring out burning espresso, and he fell first to his knees, and then on his face. He did not move.

Rory wasted no time in calling the police.

* * *

The police were gone when Stephen drove up, getting out of his car in one smooth maneuver and taking long strides into the shop, bursting through the door, eyes searching frantically. He saw Rory, standing in the middle of the floor, and before he knew what he was doing he rushed to her. A weight lifted from his shoulders, a weight that had settled there since he had shown the photo to his superior and then gone to the police. The break in the case that had put her in danger.

"You're safe," he wasn't sure who he was reassuring: her, or himself as his heart threatened to break his ribcage into a thousand tiny pieces. His hands were on either side of her face, and she was nodding, eyes sparkling, and relief crashed over him like a tidal wave. In a burst of energy he didn't realize was coming, he pulled her in close and kissed her, a simple touch of lips to lips. Then, as if electrified, he released her. She was staring at him, lips slightly parted.

"Sorry—" he started to say, but then she crashed into him, her mouth closing over his, pressing, asking for entry, which he gave, and he could barely hold up her weight as she latched onto him, energized like a fallen star from a story whose name he had forgotten.

They fell to the ground, Rory on top, her legs on either side of Stephen's torso as she kissed him like the world was ending—which it wasn't—and they weren't on the floor of a tea shop called The Last Mad Tea Party—which they were, ridiculously enough—and his hands were tangled in her long hair as he struggled to keep up, glasses pushed up his forehead and slightly crushed. His hands traveled down her back, feeling the rise and fall of her curves, the muscles of her body moving beneath her shirt. The space between them dwindled, and the warmth increased.

They broke off the kiss, panting, at the sound of a door swinging open.

Callum stood at the door to the kitchen, frozen and looking slightly traumatized. His jacket, forgotten in his office, was hanging from one hand.

"Callum—" Rory tried to speak up, but her manager held up one hand for silence.

"_I don't want to know_," he said, and when she tried to speak up once again he near but shouted "_I DON'T _NEED _TO KNOW_." With both hands in the air and a strained look to his face he walked out the front door, turned right on the sidewalk, and just kept going.

"… Wasn't that your boss?" Stephen asked, falling back to the floor while Rory remained upright. His pulse was beating like a drum in his temples in the best possible way, and he was wearing far too many clothes.

Rory grabbed a handful of hipster scarf and pulled him back up, closer. "Not really," she said, and then he was too busy to ask again.

* * *

**Ta-Da.**

**Review, please?**


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